Blizzaga Saga: Hello, lovelies! Please re-read the previous chapter before looking at this one. I edited it due to some issues I wasn't happy with. Enjoy.
His bulk and fiery hair diverted attention from the strange green pallor of his skin. Rather than answer right away, he held up his massive broadsword to examine it—a show of confidence, Impa assumed, since wolfos disappeared when they died and thus couldn't have bloodied his blade.
"I am fine, though I wonder what two Hylians are doing so close to my borders."
"I am no Hylian," she snapped before she could stop herself. Angry but too tired to do anything about it, she allowed him to study her eyes, and his golden ones widened.
"A Sheikah?" His thick eyebrows came together in a demanding glare. "Tell me what you're doing here or I will end you."
She'd long since grown used to the unnerving effect she had on others, but his hostility surprised her. He gripped his weapon tightly as though trying to find his amused, self-assured manner again, and she blinked at his transformation. Surely the man she just witnessed destroying a monster was braver than this.
Lacking Sheikah powers of observation, Link saw only his muscular exterior and readiness to fight. Every big person he met had hurt him in some way, even Marin, so he hid behind his teacher.
Before she could respond, a brown-skinned woman atop a horse trotted to the man's side, wearing twin swords on her belt and a small top which covered her bust but not her stomach. Save for a yellow jewel on her forehead which matched the man's, the slender young redhead fit descriptions of the Gerudo from loose tongues in Castle Town.
"I take it you are the Gerudo king?" Impa asked.
"Y...Yes. I am Ganondorf Dragmire."
He spoke roughly at first, as though fear had stuck in his throat. At the reminder of his station, however, he straightened, though he kept his stance wider than was necessary as though expecting her to strike.
"It was not my intention to threaten your borders," she said as peacefully as she could. It came out as blunt and defensive rather than angry and threatening. "I was summoned to Lon Lon Ranch to deal with a wolfos."
He remained wary, but his companion at least seemed placid. The pretty teenager sat perfectly still, apparently trained not to act without her master's order. Her golden eyes were somehow dull as though her mind was elsewhere, a far cry from the rumors Impa heard of desert warriors who used their allure to distract opponents.
She felt more waves of animosity, but not from Ganondorf. He spotted the horse riders approaching from the northeast and growled accusingly at her.
"No. You wouldn't have brought a boy with you to slay monsters. You've discovered my plans and summoned the king's men to stop me!"
"I don't care about whatever your ambitions are. Those men are after me, not you. For you and your servant's safety, I ask that you stay out of this fight."
Link turned his head to see that their pursuers had drawn weapons, their horses kicking up dust in their haste. After what the Great Deku Tree told him, he knew that whatever evil was trying to take over Hyrule would eliminate anything in its way. The knights may as well have been monsters, and Link clutched the back of Impa's shirt.
"They're getting closer!" he warned in a small, frightened voice.
Throughout their conversation, Ganondorf's arm hadn't tired from holding his sword, and presently he pointed it at the Sheikah. "I wasn't ready to fight you yet, but Gerudo do not shy away from combat. I've worked too long to be undone, even by you. Nabooru!"
The Gerudo woman drew her bow in wordless obedience, and Impa gritted her teeth. She should have known that words wouldn't work; they never did. The alliance between races didn't stop Hylian rulers from confining the Gerudo to a wasteland, which she guessed was the source of Ganondorf's anger. Nor did knightly vows stop Hyrule's protectors from taking advantage of powerless civilians like Link. The promises of Hyrule's previous king didn't prevent him from killing her people, and she knew that Daphnes' promises to stop hunting her meant nothing even as he uttered them.
None knew betrayal better than she did. It was how the world worked, so she quashed her anger, knowing that Ganondorf was right not to trust her. Even her word was worthless in the end.
"Impa...ya don't have to give up because of me. You can still find a family of your own."
"I would never ask you to give up your happiness for me. Marry her. I'm not upset. Really, I'm not." He looked upon her with caring eyes, undeterred by the hard, determined expression which scared most other people away. Damn him. Of all the men in Hyrule, she had to fall for the one who didn't care how strong she was. "I thank you, actually. This was...a wake-up call. I shouldn't dedicate time to a relationship when I can do so much good with the strength others paid in blood to give me. I lost my race, but now all of Hyrule is my family, and as long as even one member of that family suffers at the hands of others, I will not rest."
She tried to be upset with him as she uttered the last sentence. He'd been nothing but restful lately. They wrestled each other for fun when they were younger, but since building the ranch and securing his financial future, he'd let his muscles soften and his belly grow large.
Even so, his kindness and desire to make others feel at ease remained unchanged, and her attempt to hate him failed as it always did. Just as he didn't care how strong she was, she didn't care that he couldn't compete with her in combat anymore or that he was starting to bald. He was still handsome to her, and she neither wanted nor needed a big strong man to protect her anyway. Talon knew that from the beginning. He'd always accepted her.
"Even you need rest sometimes. I hope that when you do, you'll come here. You know better than anyone how ugly the world can be. I'd hate to see it bring ya down with it. Doing good is important and all, but...promise me you'll try to be happy, all right?"
Of what import were her feelings in a world where genocide could go unchecked? Still, she couldn't find it in her to disappoint Talon. "I...I promise."
Lost in memories, she returned to the present when her horse fell. Alarmed that a person directly in front of her could loose an arrow without her noticing, she quickly realized that Nabooru wasn't responsible. The two riders from Castle Town had finally reached them and fired upon her her.
A neigh of pain from her mount shattered the peace in Hyrule Field. As the horse's legs gave, Impa fought the urge to panic so she wouldn't end up beneath it, but Link lacked her training and experience. He let go of his sensei and flailed his limbs the moment he started falling, afraid of landing on his hurt arm. Impa managed to roll out of the way, but when she recovered, she saw his head poking out from under the much bigger animal, his face red from the crushing weight.
"Link!"
The horse thrashed in a vain attempt to rise, each movement squeezing air out of Link's lungs. He almost closed his eyes while struggling for fear of being kicked, but Impa's eyes were wide as she ran to the creature and pulled him out from under it with her augmented strength.
He didn't move his legs as she dragged him to safety. They hurt enough that her grip on his arm didn't bother him, but he bit his lip to keep silent, remembering the times she told him not to complain during his training.
Hearing nothing from him, Impa mentally panicked. As a fugitive, she couldn't retrieve a potion for him in Castle Town, but the knights could, and protecting the lives of citizens was their job. She quickly realized, however, that they'd hold his health for ransom to lure her back if she left him. They might even harm him more, so with a snarl she prepared to charge at them and end the fight quickly.
She had to avoid Ganondorf's blade first, though. The horse's pain almost hid the sound of his approach, but Impa kicked off the ground in time to avoid his sword as he brought it down in an overhead swing. While close to him, she noticed that the whites around his golden irises were slightly yellow—sickly, like his skin. His sword passed through the space she'd been in moments ago, but his eyes followed her, filled with determination which surpassed that of the other men. Why did this stranger want her dead so badly?
"Seize her! That woman is a criminal!" one of the knights shouted, and Impa's eyes glowed.
The soldiers were angry, but also desperate and scared, so she was ready when one of them shot at her again. Unarmed and unable to teleport after her fight at the castle, she caught the arrow heading for her face by the shaft, and without blinking she glared at the one who sent it. His hands trembled as he held her gaze, unable to look away.
"I will cut off the hand that is raised against me."
The knights' eyes grew round as they fumbled with their weapons, clearly rethinking their decision to come here, and she turned her attention to Ganondorf. Unlike the other men, his failed attempt to attack her didn't discourage him. Realizing the futility of trying to hit her with such a large, predictable weapon, he dropped his broadsword and produced a hunting knife from a scabbard on his belt before assuming a stance which told her that he knew how to use it.
Unfortunately for him, she was no stranger to fighting kings today. Before he could act, she came at him with speed no mortal could match. He brought his blade up, hoping she lacked the control to stop before she impaled herself, but without slowing down she batted his arm away with one hand and used the other to strike his midsection with such force that he dropped the knife. The massive man stumbled backwards, and when he came to rest on one knee, his hand went to the now dented part of his torso armor where her palm had struck.
His skin wrinkled around his hooked nose in fury. "Nabooru!" he bellowed.
His subordinate dismounted and drew her scimitars quickly and efficiently, without the haughty air Impa expected of a "beautiful but deadly" Gerudo. Impa planted her feet, ready to rush her like she'd rushed Ganondorf, but to her surprise the teenager came at her first.
Before Impa could register what happened, she cried out and looked wide-eyed at the redhead. Calm and silent as a hunter, Nabooru kept her arms raised and her eyes trained on her prey, and when Impa saw blood on one of the curved swords, she became aware of blood trickling down her arm. No one had ever hurt her like this without resorting to tricks or cannonballs. How could someone move more quickly than her?
It didn't matter. All that mattered was that it would cost yet another of her people's souls to heal her. Though no longer a naive girl who believed in the good of Hylians, she still believed that one day she would find a way to return life to the spirits inside her, so like at the castle, Impa transformed her heartache into fury. Daphnes' assassination attempts on her had gradually reduced her family's numbers, and now this stupid girl had taken another family member from her forever.
The veins in Impa's arms swelled, and her wound closed. Nabooru swung her scimitar, only for Impa to seize her wrist and slam an open palm into her ribs, which unlike Ganondorf's, weren't protected by armor.
The bones in Nabooru's exposed stomach shattered. Link watched in horror as she flopped to the ground like a training dummy. Her ponytail fell over her face, but she made no attempt to move it.
"Get up," he whispered, wishing he could wake up from this nightmare and forget this world filled with atrocities he was powerless to stop. Breathing heavily through bared teeth, Impa stood over her felled opponent, but she may as well have killed herself instead of Nabooru, for she'd done what she told him not to do, the one thing which made someone evil according to her. As the last symbol of virtue Link knew became an angry beast before his eyes, he could only wonder what hope was left not just for his survival, but for the world.
Impa picked up the knife Ganondorf dropped. It didn't have the same weight as her kunai, but her aim was true as she threw it into the shoulder of one of the Hylians. While he screamed, she turned calmly to the unharmed soldier, who paled.
"Your comrade will be fine, but he won't be able to hold weapons for a while."
It had taken her years to control her inhuman strength, to live without accidentally hurting others, to fight without going too far. Even now, the desire to let loose without caring about the consequences persisted like an itch she couldn't scratch. Her muscles tensed, entreating her to punish the wretches who took one of her beloved, and she knew she'd be angry for a long time if she didn't obey that urge.
She also knew, however, that she'd never forgive herself if she did. She'd never fulfill her promise to Talon if she stooped to the level of her family's killers, and becoming a monster now would be tantamount to abandoning Link. With her arms still and her low voice even, she faced Ganondorf.
"The girl will live if you take her to your people immediately. None of you can win this fight. Return to your homes and heal."
The Hylians stared at her in awe, Link most of all, for his teacher, the one person he had left in the world, hadn't been corrupted. Despite how tired she was and how easily she could kill everyone, she didn't break her principles, and abruptly he felt as though he was looking at a heroine from a fairy tale—or a hero, he thought, remembering how she'd snapped at him for calling her "Miss". The ex-Kokiri had seen more cruelty today than he thought possible, but how could he wallow in self-pity when someone as great as her believed the world was still worth fighting for?
"Get up," he whispered once more, this time to himself.
Impa hid her surprise as Link struggled to his feet, once again doing more somehow than his physical and mental condition should have allowed. She resisted the urge to smile proudly and instead stared down the Gerudo king.
Rather than cowering beneath her gaze like the other men or caring for his underling, however, he looked at the knights. "You two aren't working with her?" They shook their heads, too afraid to speak. He trembled, and Link thought he was afraid too until his lips lifted into a smirk.
"Heh...heh heh...ha ha ha ha!"
The chuckle erupted into roaring, maniacal laughter, and Impa bristled. Those who didn't treasure the ones close to them while they were alive earned the least of her sympathy.
"Your servant's life is at stake. There is nothing to laugh at," she hissed, but Ganondorf shook his head, grinning as though in disbelief of his good fortune.
"Men of Hyrule...I shall rid your kingdom of this vermin as a service to your king!" His grin turned sinister and eager as he faced her. "For years I feared I wouldn't be able to overcome you. After hearing rumors of the demon who could teleport and live through anything, I thought you were invincible, but you can't even handle my servant."
Impa's response died on her lips when she turned to Nabooru, and Link's legs, barely able to hold him up, started shaking. As quickly as Impa's arm had healed, the discoloration on the beautiful girl's stomach became brown like the rest of her skin. The broken bones arranged themselves into a healthy shape again, and to the astonishment of everyone except Ganondorf, she stood.
"They're both demons!" the knights cried.
Impa activated her ability, but when she searched for Nabooru's emotions to predict her next move, she found nothing. Nabooru neither raged at being knocked down nor delighted in everyone's fear of her. She didn't grunt in pain or speak. Ganondorf's laughter grew, the knights argued over whether fleeing would make them cowards, and Link voiced his confusion in frightened stutters, but Nabooru merely stared at Impa with empty eyes.